Here are some pics I've taken over the last few days. I figured since I'm a poor blogger, the least I could do is give y'all some pics to look at.

I just LOVE this pic. I think they look almost like a heart.

This is Nate's "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" impression

Peek-a-boo!

To the naked eye this may look like the pic of a child going down the slide.
On the contrary, this is Nate going UP the slide.

Hi

Having fun

Isn't he just the cutest little boy ever?

Grace wasn't able to do this when she was his age.
In fact, I think she may have been closer to being 3 years old.
He's just a natural climber!

My little Grace....so pretty

Ray, Grace, and I after Grace's elementary school Christmas program
(Nate was not there and was being watched by a friend since he's way too
active to take to quiet places where you need to sit for any period of time)

Gracie after her program in her Christmas dress. How cute!

Slacker, Slacker

Yes, I know. I am a slacker. Apparently I am a really poor blogger. I mean really, how hard is it to type a few sentences once a day. I can certainly TALK that much, why can't I write that much? At any rate, I haven't been keeping up with blog as well as I'd like (I know, I know. I say this ALL the time). But I'm here now, so that counts, doesn't it?

So I've been kind of at a stand still weight loss wise. I won't call it a plateau because really its my fault for see-sawing between these stupid same TWO pounds for TWO months. I know many of you may think, "Hey Gabbi. That's great. You've maintained your weight." But the reality of it is that I could have lost at least another 8 lbs in that time. Instead, I'm staying right where I am playing yo-yo. Think of it like this: Pretend you are in the middle of a lake. You're stuck in the same spot and all you are doing is treading water and not making any progress. If all you do is tread water and not go anywhere, eventually you're going to tire out, give up, and sink. Now, I'm not saying I'm going to give up, because I'm not. But burning out is something I have been familiar with in the past, which is why I have never made it past a 30 lb loss. Now I have dreams and goals, and by golly I am determined to eventually reach them, but it is SOOOO frustrating at times to see where I should have been by now and seeing where I am. Losing 35 lbs is no simple feat. I'm proud that I have accomplished that much. But in other ways I am disappointed with myself for not giving 100% all of the time. you'd think that since I know what I need to do and how I need to do it, that I would just do it already. But this is a very tough struggle for some people to deal with and when it comes to food decisions my taste buds seem to win every battle with my mind. I am trying to work on that, but this isn't the easiest time of year to be dealing with this either. I guess I say all that to say that I am still in the race. Its obviously not a race of speed but a race of endurance, to which at some point, I will see the finish line. Its not going to be easy, it never is and I never thought it was. But I can't wait to be able to one day finally cross that finish line and finish this race.

Weight wise, I am right about the same as I was 2 weeks ago. I'm finally over my cold, which has now passed on to Ray. Grace and Nate are both doing well, but I'm dealing with a shoulder problem that I've had for the good part of a month (if not a whole month already). I'm not sure what it is thats wrong, but I can barely lift my arm above my head, I cannot scratch my back with that arm, I can hardly lift objects with that arm either. Its really stinky not having insurance, otherwise I would have already been to the doctor to have it checked out. I'm sure its fine, but its really hard to rest it when I absolutely have to use my arm ALL day long, each and every day. Its nearly impossible to NOT use it, which worries me that if rest is all I need to feel better, I may never feel better =) I'm not one to complain about physical pain much, I usually try to suck things up and deal with it thanks to my high tolerance for pain, so when I actually mention something, its usually really bothering me. So, if you think about it, please say a little prayer for my shoulder.

Sick

Here I am, right before Thanksgiving......sick. Blah. I have a terrible head cold that kicks my butt in the mornings. I usually start to feel better throughout the day, but then awful in the mornings. Now I'm just trying, and praying, that no one else gets sick (Ray's mom actually got sick, too, a day before me, so we're both fighting this off).

As far as weight goes, I am down 1.8 lbs from last week, which was very nice to see. I have about 1.8 lbs left to get where I was when I went on vacation and gained 5 lbs back. It may be hard during Thanksgiving to get a loss, but I am going to try my hardest. We'll see how it goes.

Grace definitely has ringworm. It takes about 4 weeks to clear up and it's definitely not something thats disappearing fast. But its not so itchy anymore to her, so thats good news. It is looking better than it first did, but it still has a long way to go.

And thats my updates for now.

Quick Update

Well, once again I slacked off with keeping up with my blog. I am still trying to relose the weight I gained while on vacation. When I left, got on the plane with a loss of 36.4 lbs and after gaining and losing some weight I am at 32.8 lbs. Basically, I have 3.6 lbs to get me back to where I was. I am really trying to stay focused for the next 6 weeks so that I can lose weight consistently enough to FINALLY break the 40 lb mark by Christmas. Totally attainable if I can keep myself on track and my head in the game. Thats only a little over a 1 lb a week. Then, I need to refocus after Christmas once again (if I seem to lose my focus during the holidays, which will probably happen) because then another 6 weeks and it will be my birthday. Man....it would be such a wonderful birthday present to FINALLY reach the 50lb mark. 12 weeks from now to lose 17lbs. Again, I think this is totally doable, as long as I can keep myself from gaining weight and sticking with a loss each week. We'll see. I'm really going to try.

I've been talking more walks now and its been with the kids in the middle of the day. Grace has finally gotten the hang of the pedals on a bike and she is now able to ride her bike (with training wheels of course). This makes me happy because now I can include both her and Nate on my walks. Obviously, I won't be able to go long distances or for long periods of time on these walks, at least without a substantial break, but I can go on several walks a day to get more mileage in. Yesterday I was happy to find out that Grace is able to bike over 2 miles. I tested her out on one of my routes and made sure I had a back up shorted route that included a stop at Aunt Elizabeth's house along the way, if needed. I kept checking on her and made sure she wasn't tire, and she just kept on wanting to ride her bike. We took these little 30 second water breaks every so often along the way, but other than that, she did 2.3 miles like it was nothing. I'm going to have to take a pic of her.....she's so cute riding her bike around. We're even thinking about getting some bikes soon so that we could all ride together sometime.

Well, thats about it. The kids are recovering from colds. Ray and I caught them as well, however our bodies fought it off pretty good and we didn't get as sick. Grace has what the board thinks to be ringworm, and by the board I mean Ray, Ray's mom and I. Fortunately, I didn't have to bring Grace into the doctor's office (yay for over-the-counter-medicine). Actually, after looking at picture online, I'm certain its ringworm. But we're treating it and watching it and hopefully we can skip the dr's office altogether, so long as its better or gone (can't remember if they said to bring her in if its not better or if its not gone.....but we'll cross that bridge when we get there).

Hmmm.....something tells me this update wasn't so quick......

Prayers Needed........

A friend of mine from my online weight loss group has a daughter who is pretty sick. I wanted to find out the exact story and then post a blog here to ask for prayers for her. The girl's name is Cassidy and she is 10 years old. She is the oldest child of 4 of my friend, Terena and her husband. They live in Huntsville, Alabama. I am going to copy and paste a blog Terena wrote about Cassidy to my weight loss group. Be prepared, I was bawling as I read it, so you may as well. Please keep Cassidy, her brother, sisters, and parents in your prayers.

I wanted to just write a post to let you know what has been going on, and to thank you for all of the support, prayers, concern, messages, and phone calls. First, some background…

For those of you who may not know, I have four children, ages 5,6,8,&10. Yep, my life is crazy!! My 10 yr old was diagnosed with asthma when she was two.. not a big deal, lots of kids have that. However, when she was 4, she became very ill and lost 7 pounds in two weeks.. that is a ton of weight when you are four! We ended up in Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital in Atlanta, where she checked into the ER with a blood sugar of 1120. That is NOT a typo! A healthy person’s blood sugar should be below 110. The docs there were amazed she was not in a full-blown diabetic coma. The Lord so protected her. She was immediately diagnosed with Type 1 (Juvenile) Diabetes, and we were informed that she would be insulin-dependant for life. Pretty rough news to hear. My husband and I were immediately thrown into all kinds of education classes about Diabetes, counting carbohydrates, insulin doses, injections, even giving shots to each other of saline. I remember being angry that they were making us take all of these classes when we had not even adapted to the fact that our daughter had this disease. However, after several days in the hospital, I realized that knowledge is power, and instead of being broken over the fact that she was insulin dependant for life, we now had the knowledge to keep her healthy and knew that this disease was something she would live with, not die from. Cassidy was on four shots a day, and life was very stressful. 6 weeks later, I found out I was pregnant with an unexpected baby #4!! We named her Harmony, because we needed her to go along with our routine, not march to her own drum!! She has been such a blessing, and her name is perfect for her. Amazing how The Lord gives us what we didn’t even know we wanted! Shortly after Harmony was born, we were blessed to have a doctor at Johns Hopkins put Cassidy on an insulin pump. This incredible device has changed the way Cassidy lives (and had made our job so much easier). The pump is the size of a cell phone, and Cassidy wears it 24 hours a day. She still checks her blood sugar by poking her finger 8 times a day. The insulin pumpgives her a basal dose of insulin, which is basically a constant drip of insulin to try and keep her blood sugar steady. She then boluses more insulin to cover any high blood sugars as well as any carbohydrates she eats. It is wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that we feel most of the time, at least for the last 3 years, that we have this diabetes thing handled. Cassidy has been very healthy, in spite of her disease. The problem comes when, like last week, her asthma is triggered, and thus affects the diabetes.

Monday morning when I picked her up from my sister’s house in Tennessee (after flying the red-eye from Vegas), she said she wasn’t feeling well. We drove the 4 hours home,. and she used her inhaler a couple of times. We all went to bed early that night (I had 6 hours of sleep the whole time in Vegas!!). She was up most of the night having trouble breathing and generally not feeling well. Tuesday morning, I made her a doctor appt for 10:30, and got my other kids to school. She began complaining that her chest felt like someone was stabbing her and I realized we needed to be in the ER, not waiting for our appt. Long story short (shorter… sorry this is so long), they admitted her into the hospital because they had to give her such a huge dose of steroids to help her breathe, which caused her blood sugars to go through the roof (600s). Her body was then fighting two battles, against each other, and winning neither. It is such a catch-22… she needs the steroids to breathe better, but the steroids are like poison to the diabetes. She was finally released Friday afternoon, and we thought she was doing better. She had a relapse Saturday night, and then another Sunday afternoon. We saw the doc again yesterday, and we believe she is finally turning the corner to being better. We had to double the at-home steroid dose, so we once again are fighting the blood sugars. She is still on breathing treatments every 2-3 hours. We are praying that we will be able to control it enough at home that she will continue to get better without having to be back in the hospital. She is not allowed to go back to school this week, and is not allowed to return until having three totally healthy days. She is an amazing kid, believe me. Through this whole ordeal, she has not complained that life isn’t fair. She has braved all of the IVs, treatments, ketone checks, and endless finger-pricks, without fear or complaint. I tell you, the challenges this 10 yr old faces on a daily basis is enough to make any of us feel capable of doing anything.

I guess my point is, in relating this to our journey, is that we all have challenges, some are harder than others. Some have the challenge of health, some of finding time to exercise, some are challenged to make consistent good eating choices. All have challenges in some shape or form. I want to encourage you to take a lesson from the bravest kid I know, my sweet Cassidy, and rise up to the challenge that is before you. Choose to face each day with an attitude of “I CAN DO THIS!!” Because you know what??? You CAN do it!! We all can! Like I have said before, there are so many excuses to not eat right, not exercise, not become healthy. However, there is NEVER a reason!!

What Else Could Go Wrong, Part 3

So part three of our traveling saga concludes with our drive from Vegas to Long Beach. It is a 4 hour drive that starts off through the desert and eventually brings us driving up and down some beautiful mountainous roads. The 4 hour drive would have brought us into Long Beach around 1:30pm, however, we made excellent time and we were getting off the freeway heading to the airport to drop off our car, pick up our baggage, and hail a taxi to the harbor around 1pm. This gave us plenty of time to do all that needed to be done to make the 2pm boat over to the island. We get off the freeway and wait for the light to turn green on the exit ramp. The turns, and we proceed with the traffic to the next traffic light, but we are going slow as it is red. It turns green, the traffic starts to go, but the traffic in front of me comes to a sudden stop, so I then stop myself. I am at a complete stop when I look into my rear view mirror, only to see the woman behind me is assuming the traffic has continued through the light, and is looking completely to her right, not paying attention to the fact that I am stopped in front of her. I yell out, "Oh my goodness, she's not even looking," when BAM, she slams right into the rear of our rental car. Frustrated at her not looking and our combined travel stresses, I "wanted" to get out of the car and go off on her. The accident, only FOUR MILES FROM THE AIRPORT, will now cause us to have to wait another 2 hours and 15 minutes for the next boat. THe police office shows up rather quickly, and was very fast getting the info for her report, however, by the time we were done with that, getting to the the rental car place and filling out the report there, getting our baggage from the airport and the taxi ride to the ferry landing, we ended up missing the ferry by only 30 minutes. So we waited there for the next one and safely made it on the next boat with no incidents to Catalina. And boy, did we need the Catalina part of this vacation!! It was so relaxing, and we even contemplated staying an extra day to compensate for the time missed, however a few things fell into place that made us decide to just come home on the flight we already had. One, Grace had a little breakdown at school on Monday where at nap time, she was sad and cried that she missed Ray and I, and ended up staying with her teacher during the entire nap time. The second was late Monday night, early Tuesday morning, Grace wakes up her grandma telling her she has a headache and grandma noticed she felt warm as well. A little while later, Grace had thrown up (only one time, thank goodness), but she has been running a fever still even this afternoon. Unfortunately, while I don't think she needs to go to the doctor, I think school may require a doctor's note (since shes missed 2 days of school so far) which means I probably need to bring her in.

At any rate, I am glad to be home, but I do miss being on Catalina. The weather was BEAUTIFUL. I needed to wear a sweater because I was chilly, and I absolutely LOVE needing to wear a sweater. I love being cold and having to bundle up. It sure beats sweating because its so STINKIN' HUMID, as it is here back home now. Isn't it supposed to be fall?

Our flight home went well and we even got in a few minutes earlier. And man, my bed never felt sooooo comfortable.

The end.

What Else Could Go Wrong, Part 2

Part two of the story starts with our flight from Vegas to Long Beach, California. We have a flight out of Vegas on Jetblue that leaves at 7:00am and arrives in Long Beach at 8:10am. We get to bed late at about 1:30am, but we get up at 4:30am anyway with no problems. We leave at 5:00am and head to the car rental place to return our car. We get there, and we are in and out and then we head on the shuttle to the airport. Once we arrive at the airport, we go straight to the Jetblue counter to check in and theres hardly anyone in line. The man weighs our 2 suitcases and one is over by 8 lbs. Rather than pay the extra $20 fee for overweight baggage, we decide to rearrange some things. However, once we try to close the bigger of the 2 suitcases, the zipper breaks. We try frantically to fix it to no avail. Ray runs upstairs to see if the stores have any type of suitcase or bags that we can use. He comes back empty handed because the bags were small and he wasn't sure if they would work. I try to go look at them myself, however in my stressed out mode I failed to hear where Ray told me to go look and I came back telling him I didn't see it but since we had no other choice just to go get three (since we could check 4 items between the 2 of us). He comes back and we throw all the things in the three bags, check them, and run upstairs to the security check because it is now 6:20am and our flight leaves in 40 mins. Once you go through the security check at the Las Vegas airport, you must then board a tram/train like thing to get to the gate. The woman at the Jetblue counter told us to hurry because the line was getting a little long. Well, little honestly does not describe this line in any way, shape, or form. In fact, the line was the biggest line I think I have seen anywhere in the entire world, EVER. Despite getting ahead in the line a little due to the fact our flight was leaving soon, we spend the entire 40 minutes in the line. We get to the gate, finally, only to see that our plane is still there, yet the doors have already been closed and there is no way that we can get in. In fact, they even held up closing the boarding from 10 minutes until departure to 4 minutes until departure to try to wait for us and another couple who arrived late. Needless to say, we needed to wait until the next flight, which was 2pm, a whole 7 hours later, and on top of that, the flight was full and we would have to fly standby which means we weren't guaranteed a seat and that was the only other flight (I think) to Long Beach. Frustrated, I cried because the traveling entailed with this trip has just been utterly stressful. I come up with the idea that the drive is only 4 hours away, and we should see what a rental would cost and cancel this flight, especially since there was no guarantee we would make it there the same day. Its rather inexpensive for a car, and we go ahead and rent one. We plan on arriving at the Long Beach airport at around 1pm to pick up our luggage, return the car, and grab a taxi to the 2pm ferry to Catalina. However, there is still yet another chapter to this story that I will finish blogging tomorrow (Wednesday Oct 31) about. Right now, it is currently 8:52pm California time. We are at the airport about to board our plane home. We'll see if we make it. We're already about past security and the plane is already here being cleaned. So far, it seems we might actually make this flight......,.ON TIME to boot.

TO BE CONTINUED.................

What Else Could Go Wrong??

Let's just preface this by saying at least I did not gamble one penny in Vegas because quite honestly we would have lost a lot. This trip which was supposed to be relaxing and fun has been more stress than I had ever hoped. Now I say this during a moment where I am feeling very frustrated and I need to add that I did have some fun once I got into Vegas. So without further ado, here is my story................................so far.

Rewind to Friday. We have a noon flight on Airtran Airways that is supposed to arrive around 1:50 pm in Atlanta. We have a connecting flight on the same airline that leaves Atlanta at 2:35pm and is supposed to get us into Vegas at 4:10pm. I have a dinner to be at that starts at 8pm, so I have enough time to get settled and get to my dinner with my friends from my weight loss group. So we get to the airport, get settled, and wait to board. We are told that are flight is running late but our connections would be ok. The plane came in a half an hour late pushing us really close to missing our connection, however, we were told to get on the plane anyway, to hurry and get in our seats as fast as we can and that all connections would still be OK. So there we are a plane full of people waiting to take off and we're just sitting there. All passengers had boarded, yet were weren't leaving. A few minutes later, the pilot says we'd be pushing off in just a little bit and that maintenance was on board working on a minor computer glitch. Half an hour later, they say we are ready to take off. It is now a little after one, and our plane is over an hour late taking off. It's supposed to be an almost 2 hour flight which would make us late for the connection, and no one says anything to us about missing or not missing our connecting flights. Well, long story short, the pilots made excellent time, and we actually get off the plane at like 2:35-2:40pm, and we sprint two gates over to try to catch our plane with two other guys who were headed to Vegas as well. The plane was already gone and so we headed to the customer service desk and we were told that we would be booked on the next flight. Ok, no biggie right? Well, the next flight leaves Atlanta at 7pm AND it is over a 4 hour flight. So that basically means we take off at 4pm Vegas time and get there after 8pm. I had to be at a dinner at 8pm and we still had to get off the plane, get our baggage, go to get our rental car and get over to the dinner. We stuck with the two other Vegas guys and tried to see if another airlines had a flight leaving to Vegas earlier. A Delta flight was found and was set to leave Atlanta at 4pm and would get us to Vegas a little after 5pm Vegas time. Unfortunately, Airtran does NOT work with other airlines and the ticket to Vegas on Delta would cost $366 per person PLUS tax. Yikes. If Airtran had a working agreement with Delta, we would have been able to exchange our Airtran ticket for that Delta flight, no charge. So the 7pm flight it was. We did get a $10 meal voucher from Airtran and a $25 off voucher for a future flight. Ironically enough, there was an article in the paper not too long ago that listed airlines that were best at being on time, comfort, etc. and Airtran was best for being on time (at least for our airport). Oh well, not this time and apparently there was a lot of people missing their connecting flights all over because there wasa ton of people at the Airtran customer service desk trying to rebook flights they had missed.

So to answer the question I am sure you are asking at this point, Yes I did make the dinner. We got there about 9:30ish and we had some time since it ended at 11pm. It was nice, the food was good and I got to see my friends, so that was nice.

But stay tuned, because there are more unfortunate events to my Vegas/California trip.

On My Way.....

Well, it's Friday. Today is the day Ray and I fly out to Las Vegas for two days and then we head out to California for three. We are very excited to get some time to ourselves, but at the same time, it's hard. We dropped Grace off to school this morning and at that point it didn't really hit me; instead it just felt as if we were dropping her off at school. However, the hard part for me was once we got to the airport. I got out, got my stuff and hugged and kissed Nate and I pretty much lost it. I guess it didn't help that he was getting a little fussy but I know the kids are in GREAT hands, which gives me some peace of mind. Ray and I need this trip and I know it will be awesome.

Anyway, I didn't make my 40 lbs, but I did get to 36.4....only 3.6 short of my goal. I'm not going to worry about it. I'm just going to have a great time.

I'll blog again when I can! (No weights this Monday since I don't have my trusty scale.)

Camping Anyone?

Well, Nate does NOT want to stay in his crib. He's been really good at just coming out when he wakes up, however, if Ray is not here to put him down, he will not stay in until Ray is able to do so. I found this out the other night when Ray took Grace out on a pizza date and I had Nate home alone. When it came time for bed, I did our normal bedtime routine and within a minute, Nate was back out in the living room. We went through this about 5 times when I tried tying a sheet to the crib like someone suggested to me, but unfortunately, it did not work. I waited with Nate in the living room until Ray got home, and down Nate went, without a hitch. Yesterday at nap time, for the first time in like, EVER, Nate gave me a problem. He came out after putting him down for his nap. He never does this. He always goes down for naps so easily, but not yesterday. So, after his nap, I went to pick up Grace from school, and we stopped by Babies R Us on the way home to pick up a crib tent and Ray set it up last night when he got home from work. Nate seemed a bit confused by this new contraption around his bed, and when we tried to put him down in it, it was like we were reliving what we just went through a couple of months ago with trying to break him of waking up in the middle of the night for a bottle. He screamed and cried for probably a good half an hour when we went back in the room, comforted him, laid him back down and tried keeping the tent open to try to keep him at ease a little. However, that yielded into an escape once again by the little Nate-dog. We put him back in and closed up the tent, and after about 15-20 minutes of crying, he was finally asleep.

I know it will get easier as the nights go on, but its just a little frustrating because Nate was so awesome at going down to sleep, and now all of a sudden, he's having problems again. But, it will get better and easier each night, I know. Man, its going to be super fun around here when it comes time to take his pacifiers away. Ha ha. So anyway, here is a picture of the tent that now encases Nate's crib. Camping anyone?

In case you can't tell, the tent wraps around the entire inside of the crib (around all sides and the mattress goes on top of the bottom of the tent). This keeps pretty much anything from getting out and in. Then there is a zipper opening that you open and close and it keeps it pretty much so that the kids can't figure out how to get out. The reviews were really good on this with only a few bad ones at 2 out of 5 stars. The rest were all 4 and 5 star reviews.

As I was writing this, it was time to put Nate down for a nap. I put him down alone since Ray was out, and Nate cried for just a few minutes and now he is out. Phew! I told you it would get easier. Now we'll just have to see how tonight goes. Only 6 more nights to get him used to this tent and ready for grandma and grandpa because Ray and I will be gone for 5 days. I think he should be good by then. But, we'll just have to see.

Happiness and A Monkey

So I had another weigh in yesterday. This time the scale decided to be nice to me. It said I was down a total of 3.6 lbs, which now brings me to a total of 35.8 lbs down and puts me at a loss of 16.60%. Wow. It's really starting to feel like I am accomplishing something here. I mean, losing 5 lbs is no small feat, but then you lose another 5, then another, then another, and viola! You are now down almost 36 lbs. It was certainly nice to see a big loss this week for a change. That always makes me happy. I'd like to lose 4.8 lbs by next Friday, the 26th. We'll see how close I can come.

Now about the monkey. I have a monkey. Did you know that? Yes, I do. He's a cute little fellow and his name is Nate. Yes, that's right folks, I have a monkey for a son. Why, do you ask? Well, because yesterday, at grandma's house, we tried to put him down for a nap in a play pen. He's gone down for a few naps in it before, not easily, but he has done it. However, yesterday, he was adamant about NOT taking his nap, and proceeded to climb out and come out of the room. I think nothing of it since it is a play pen and is on the smaller side. This morning, though, he wakes up and I usually let him play for a few minutes while I get Grace ready for school, then I get him out and ready. He managed to climb out and open his door and there I stood shaking my head. Of course he smiles at me and it makes my frustration go away, until this afternoon, after he wakes up from his nap and does it again. Ugh. What do you do with a monkey?

At any rate, I think we may be looking into to a canopy tent thing that goes on top of the crib to keep kids from climbing out and animals from climbing in. Its kind of pricey, but we really don't think he would go to sleep in a bed without constantly climbing out of bed every 2 seconds. I'll keep you posted on the monkey status as new developments arise. Just pray my little monkey doesn't get hurt!

Late Update

My blogging update skills need some work. Sometimes, I find it hard to find time to actually put thoughts together in a way that makes sense to others. Hence, my blog is not updated as often as I'd like. Sorry!!

Ok, so Monday wasn't my best of days. The scale showed a gain of 1.6 lbs. I was frustrated to say the least. My goal back in March when I decided to lose weight regardless of not making it on the show The Biggest Loser, was to lose 50 lbs by October 26th. I'm no where close, even though it was a completely realistic goal, and even more frustrating that other people in my weight loss group have lost 50-80 lbs (2 people have reached the 80 lb mark-amazing!!). I only have myself to blame really, because in all honesty, I haven't been giving this 100%. Its hard because I still fight myself and my excuses on a daily basis. This is probably one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, and its a constant, daily battle that I have to decide each morning to fight. I am grateful for the almost 34 lbs I've lost so far. Trust me, I am. But at the same time, I can't help being disappointed that I didn't lose as much as I could have lost. I don't want to be a "before" or a "during." I want to be an "after" already. I've spent so much time being a "before" and I'm tired. I'm drained. But I will get to the finish line, I know I will. I'm a third of the way there now and its not as far as I once had to go. No matter what, I'm NOT going to give up, no matter how hard the days are, or how much the scale says what it wants to say and not what I want it to. I'm not going to give up even if I can't always stop making excuses. I'm not going to fall off the wagon and stay down, oh no siree Bob. I will dust myself off and get right back up again. I want to see the finish line.....for once.


***As of this morning, I am already down 1.4 lbs. YAY. I've steadily lost every morning since Monday, which makes me happy. I have 2 weeks left and I'd like to see how close I can get to being 40 lbs down by the time I step on the plane to Vegas since I obviously in no way will make it to the original 50 lb goal I set. As of today, I have exactly 6.4 lbs left to hit 40. However, I would like to lose 7 lbs just to make my weight an even number. =) I'll keep you posted!

Nate Update, Birthday Party Pics, and Weight Update.....All Rolled Into One Neat Little Post

NATE UPDATE: Nate's fever went down pretty much the next day after starting his antibiotics. His chin is clearing up now too (although since the pics below were taken LAST Sunday, before he even went to the doctor, his chin is still not looking better). Below are pics from last Sunday as we were getting ready to leave the house, I decided to try to put gel in Nate's hair and style it like Ray. It's pretty cute, although, for some reason the gel didn't keep his hair up too long. Oh well, we'll try again.......

GRACE'S BIRTHDAY PARTY: Grace's party went well. Despite how stressed I was before the party got underway, everything ran smoothly (BIG thanks to Elizabeth, my sis-in-law, and my mom-in law- they helped BIG TIME and I would have been a crazed maniac had they not helped). Only 4 girls showed up. Five more were supposed to come: a girl from Grace's class and her sister, and another girl from Grace's class and her two sisters. However, the girl with the one sister was sick and her mom called right before the party started to say they wouldn't be there, and the other girl with her two sisters just did not show up (they originally called to say they were coming for sure). It was way nicer to have a smaller party, although it would have been nice to have known that ahead of time so we would have planned less food and not have had to move furniture around to accommodate 10 girls. But hey, things happen and we had a great time anyhow.

This is the Princess Cake for Princess Grace (I did NOT make it, the local grocery store did)


Grace hiding from her friends. This was not a game planned for the party, lol


After searching for a bit, they finally found her. I'm not really sure why it took so long when my condo is really tiny!

Jordyn, Grace's friend from ballet, decided to give the hiding a try, too.


The first thing we did was a craft project. We made a foam crown magnet with their names on it, and a foam picture frame magnet.


Grace and Jordyn


Grace, Jordyn, and Amiyah working on their projects


Still working on their projects


Still working.....


Almost done.....


Not quite done yet.....


Finishing up.....I hope


One last touch.....and Voila! We're done!


Here is the finished Foam Picture Frame Magnet that Grace did. Actually, she only put the three pink diamonds on the right and the green dot on. The green dot was originally some place else, and I moved it, then I finished the rest.


Here is the finished Foam Crown Magnet Grace did. She did her name, I added the hearts later as an extra touch.


LUNCH TIME! The kids had PB&J sandwiches made on pink and purple bread and was cut out into stars, triangles, and circles. They also had juice, fruit, chips, and turkey or ham if they didn't want/like the PB&J.


Yum Yum


Finishing up.....

Cleaning up for games


We played Princess Bingo. I made these princess bingo cards with princess stickers, poster board, stars, and cut a nice border with these special scrapbooking scissors. We also played Stick the Glass Slipper onto Cinderella's Foot (like pin the tail on the donkey), and Magical Ballroom Dance (where I played "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and "Bippity Boppity Boo" from Cinderella. The kids would dance while the music played, but when the music stopped, they had to sit as fast as they could on the floor. The last one to sit was out. The last one left was the winner.


The girls after they were running around chasing one another around the table.


Jordan (from Grace's school), Amiyah, Mayah (from Grace's school), Grace, and Jordyn. How funny is that? Two Jordan's, and an Amiyah and a Mayah (they are pronounced the same except Amiyah is with an AH at the beginning). And another funny thing, Amiyah, who is the daughter of my friend, doesn't go to ballet with Grace or to Grace's school, yet she knew Mayah because they had ballet together. Small world!!


Nate was SUPER awesome for the party. He napped during the first hour and a half to two hours. Then he woke up, ate, and got to play a little bit before the cake. He was such a good little guy!


Yeah. I have no clue either, lol.


Nate munching on a Maraschino Cherry. Yum!


Nate chomping on some watermelon and cantaloupe.


YAY, All done!


The girls going crazy jumping on Grace's bed.


The girls taking a break from the party, which they did on their own, lol, and playing in Grace's room


Amiyah, Mayah, Grace, Jordan, Jordyn


Still playing.....


Jordan trying to catch up to the rest of the girls...

Jordyn posing for a pic (are you confused yet with all the similar names?)

Grace with Amiyah's mom, Brandi, and brother, Emilio

Mayah and Amiyah

Princess present time!


It was so funny, the girls all got up off of the floor and surrounded Grace throughout the present opening. It was like a swarm of bees, lol.


These are the goody bags the girls received, and what came with them


The goody bag itself. Its a Disney Princess purse-like tin container I picked up from Target.


The girls got a small clip-in crown and wand.


They got Disney Princess lip gloss necklace, a pink beaded bracelet, and an Ariel lip gloss bracelet (I had the Ariel lip glosses left over from Grace's bday party last year, lol)


They also got a feathery pen and cute little notebook.


And they also got a little pink bag of pink and pinky-purple M&M's (found those at the grocery store.....they had special Breast Cancer M&M's), Disney Princess fruit snacks, and Smarties.

WEIGHT UPDATE: Today, I was down 1.4 lbs. That brings my total now to 33.8 lbs I was down 2 lbs before Grace's party, but I ate so many Pringles chips I could have opened a chip factory (ok, so I really didn't eat THAT many, but I ate A LOT). They were so good, I couldn't eat just one. Anyway, I'm now at a loss of almost 16%. While I was hoping to be down more by now, I am still really grateful for the almost 34 lbs that are gone. I am in unchartered waters right now......being at a weight I haven't been in so long. Less than 4 lbs and I will be what I weighed almost exactly 5 years ago. I'm excited, but at the same time, I just want this journey to be over already. My exercising is still struggling. It's been raining like crazy here for the past week and a half. We keep getting these systems that aren't really tropical, but once they pass over us, they form into tropical systems. However, we've been getting tropical weather (lots of rain, little bit of wind) nonetheless. While I could have been doing some sort of workout indoors, the last week has been hectic with Nate being sick and getting things ready for Grace's party. I want to get out walking again soon--today and tomorrow are rainy, so maybe Wednesday. Other than that, things have been going ok. I'm hoping this week is a better week weight loss wise. I guess we'll find out next Monday!